March 17, 2001
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Junior guard Natalie Powers (Owensboro, Ky./Apollo HS) drilled a three-pointer from the top of the key with 11 seconds to play, lifting Western Kentucky to a dramatic 64-63 win over Indiana in the second round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament Saturday afternoon at E.A. Diddle Arena. With the victory, the Lady Toppers advance to the WNIT quarterfinals, where they will meet either Ohio State or DePaul (who play Sunday at 1 p.m. CST in Columbus, Ohio) early next week. A date, time and site for Western's WNIT quarterfinal game will be announced Sunday night.
WKU will move into the "Elite Eight" of a postseason tournament for the fourth time in school history, and the first time since it reached the NCAA national championship game in 1992. The Lady Toppers also improve to a sharp 11-1 in postseason tournament games at Diddle Arena. And, Western has now won four consecutive games over Big Ten Conference opponents.
Powers' heroics represented the final chapter in a razor-thin game that saw 13 ties and 11 lead changes, including three lead switches in the last 35 seconds alone. Powers finished with a game-high 29 points, giving her 716 counters this season and making her the second player in school history to break the 700-point barrier in a single campaign. She also recorded her 21st 20-point game of the year.
Senior All-America forward ShaRae Mansfield (Louisville, Ky./Manual HS) contributed 19 points and a game-high 14 rebounds, logging her 14th double-double of the season. She also moved past Clemette Haskins into fourth place on Western's career scoring list with 1,780 points. And, Mansfield is just eight rebounds away from becoming the second Lady Topper, and sixth Sun Belt Conference player, to record 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in her career.
Jill Chapman notched a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds for Indiana (20-11), which was making its first postseason appearance in four years. Heather Cassady also tossed in 16 points, and Erika Christenson came off the bench to grab 10 rebounds for the Hoosiers.
Western (19-13) scored the first four points of the game, but IU quickly responded with nine of the next 10 points to take its first lead. A mini 6-0 surge briefly gave the Lady Toppers their biggest lead of the game at 14-9 with 12:21 left in the first half. The Hoosiers countered with a 16-5 run over the next three minutes, taking their largest lead of the day at 25-19 on Chapman's three-point play. WKU slowly reeled in the visitors and tied the game twice late in the first half, but Cassady put back her own missed shot to give IU a 33-31 lead at halftime.
Indiana controlled the tempo for the majority of the second half, opening up a four-point lead on four occasions, the last coming when Chapman stuck back her own miss for a 58-54 Hoosier lead at the 4:43 mark. Powers then went to work, scoring nine of the last 10 points for the Lady Toppers, including a pair of free throws that squared the game at 60-60 with 1:22 to play. After an IU miss, Western regained the lead when freshman guard Camryn Whitaker (Cynthiana, Ky./Harrison County HS) made one of two free throws with 0:35 left.
The Hoosiers elected not to stop the clock, and the move paid off as Cassady buried a three-pointer from the right wing to give Indiana a 63-61 lead with 21 seconds left. But, just as IU had done seconds earlier, Western came back down the floor, and with the clock ticking down, Powers came off a screen and busted her third three-pointer of the game to give the Lady Toppers a slim one-point lead. Indiana had one final opportunity, but Cassady's runner in the lane was off the mark and Anna Waugh couldn't get her follow shot to fall as the horn sounded.
-- WKU --
